"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

Points to Ponder ...

"My children may bicker, and I may—almost certainly will—complain. But the bickering and the griping are chaff, and what’s left when the winds of time carry them away are the golden kernels I want to savor..."
--Melissa Wiley

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September 2008

September 14, 2008

Junie and Taz were very excited about tonight's Feast celebrating the Triumph of the Cross, and were really getting into helping me prepare some of the dishes. We had just finished frosting our Crown Cake and were cutting up some soft tortillas, when Junie's friend came to the door to see if they wanted to come outside to play.

Junie and Taz rushed to the door.

"We're having a feast tonight!" cried Junie B.

"We're having cake and cookies and candy and lots of good stuff!" added Taz.

Before Junie's friend could respond, Taz asked, "Are you having a feast tonight, too?"

We went with a blue Jell-O Poke Cake (recipe below) -- for the white and blue colors, of course, but also because I knew the kids would enjoy making it!

Taz was the Egg Man, and he did such a great job cracking those eggs with nary an excess piece of shell, and getting right to the usual task of whipping them up a little before adding them to the batter, that we never gave a thought to the fact that a white cake doesn't use egg yolks!!

Junie B. cried out in despair as we dumped the eggs into the cake mix, but of course by then it was too late.

Besides, I don't think there is a whiter food on this planet that Whipped Topping!

While the cupcakes baked, Junie B. and Taz worked on making a little bar soap box into a "grotto" for Our Lady. (Meredith's (of Sweetness and Light, of course!) beautiful Tea Box Shrines, made by her children, were the inspiration!) They coated the outside of the box with white glue and wood chips, and helped arrange some small stones on the inside of the box (which I adhered with hot glue). Then we added a tiny statue of St. Anne and a young Mary that we had on hand, and a votive light in front.

The effect is quite nice, I think!

We had a very small celebration at bedtime snack, singing "On This Day, O Beautiful Mother," and "Immaculate Mary" before indulging in our special treat.

Simple and sweet. Just right for our under the weather crew!

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Oh -- here's the recipe, which will work with any flavor combination of Jell-O and cake that appeals to you!

Ingredients:

1 box of white cake mix, prepared as directed (we made one layer for the freezer and 12 cupcakes for tonight)

1 (3 oz) box of Berry Blue Jell-O

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup cold water

Prepare and bake the cake as directed. After the cake has cooled, show the kids how to poke it several times all over with a fork -- straight up and down deeply, don't dig or twist.

Then dissolve the Jell-O in the boiling water; add the cold water, and then slowly pour all over the cake, taking care to be sure the liquid runs into the poked holes. (For cupcakes, use about 1 T of liquid per cupcake.)

Then chill in the refrigerator for several hours, or overnight.

Finally, frost with dollops of your favorite whipped topping! When you cut into the cake (or bite into the cupcake) you'll see the bright streaks of color from the Jell-O.

September 07, 2008

This activity, which I've seen in various forms in multiple places on the web, is just genius for its simplicity.

It's just colored glue, dried on a smooth, flat surface! How easy is that?

Here's how we did it, as an activity to help reinforce the letters and sounds Taz is learning about:You'll Need:

1 bottle of washable glue (we used a small, partially-used bottle of school glue)

Food coloring or liquid watercolors

a smooth, flat surface -- glass, acetate and clear plastic boards work great. (We used a plastic wall hanging designed to hold signs, purchased at OfficeMax. Normally we use it as a dry erase board when I don't want to permanently mark up a worksheet in a textbook -- just slip it over the page and go!)

Put in coloring several drops at a time to achieve desired color intensity (remember, glue dries clear, so the resulting color will be fairly translucent and quite a bit darker after it dries). Shake or stir the glue bottle until the coloring is completely incorporated (a marble tossed into the bottle facilitates mixing nicely!)

I prepped the activity for Taz by outlining large capital and small letters onto the board in the colored glue, and letting it dry overnight. (Older kids can freehand their designs or trace more complicated pictures themselves, of course! Pre-outlining isn't necessary, but it made sense for our purposes.) I used coloring book pages as a template.

The next day, I let Taz fill in the outlines with more of the colored glue. Then we set it aside to dry (again, overnight seems to do the trick). When they're completely dry, the letters peel off the plastic easily. The back will be slick and smooth, but not at all sticky. I let him do this entirely on his own, only making sure he didn't leave any "holes" where there shouldn't be any (you'll want the design to be solid, so it won't tear easily.)

Because I wanted the letters to be completely recognizeable when they were used, I trimmed them of any misshapenness when they were dry, with a pair of scissors. If you were making an original design or picture, of course, this step would be unnecessary.

Then just let your child stick them to the window at will, shiny-side down! They won't leave any residue and are completely resusable. I store mine in a square Lock-n-Lock sandwich container, to keep them flat.

... and what did Taz think of this activity?

As he lay flat out on the kitchen floor, squirting glue with great care, he said, "Mommy, I love Kindergarten!" :)

We have tons of plastic eggs, which started out several years ago as fodder for simple Easter Egg hunts, and ended up becoming a permanent fixture on the toy shelf. The children use them for pretend cooking (SB in particular likes to tap them on the edge of a bowl and "crack" them open), and for hiding small toys, accessorizing block play, filling and dumping trucks, picking up and releasing with tongs and of course, spur of the moment Easter Egg hunts in the living room. A couple of years ago, Step 1 and Step 2 found that if you squeeze the bottom half of a connected plastic egg, the top will shoot across the room; hilarity ensues. (This activity has special appeal to The Chief, who can be counted on to engage in Egg Wars at a moment's notice.)

Krampf's experiment involves discovering whether you have a raw egg or a hard-boiled one, following some simple observations. I knew Junie B. would catch onto the concept quickly with just a demo and a verbal explanation, but I figured Taz would appreciate a more concrete approach.

So, before introducing the real eggs, I set up a similar experiment using plastic ones!

In one egg, I put a metal marble from a magnet toy set. (I had wanted to use a small super ball, but naturally I couldn't find one. I probably got rid of the one I was thinking of in a recent cleaning & decluttering frenzy; that's usually the way it goes.) :)

It was easy to see that the marble in the egg continued to move when the egg stopped, and it was equally easy to see the effect of the playdoh on the stability of the other egg. I let the children make their own general observations, which I wrote down, and then guided them through the actual experiment observations (spinning and stopping the eggs). Again, I recorded their observations for them. We talked about what raw and hard boiled eggs were like, and discussed which of the plastic eggs might be more like a raw egg, and which more like a hard boiled.

From there, the children were given two real eggs, and were to use their observations about the plastic eggs to make comparisons with the behavior of the real eggs, and then predict which egg was the hard boiled one.

It actually worked great, and the experiment flowed very well! Of course, Taz smelled the eggs first, and immediately said, "This one smells hard-boiled." (I didn't count on that -- it was true!) Still, the real eggs behaved very like the prepared plastic ones (right down to the significance of smell, now that I think of it, since the playdoh was colored using grape koolaid mix!), and it was easy to facilitate a concrete level of understanding.

And, of course, as Krampf always likes to recommend (really, get the newsletter. It's loaded with personality!), the kids got to eat the experiment when they were done! :) (The hard-boiled eggs, of course. Not the playdoh.)

After that, we experimented with spinning the plastic (empty) eggs on their ends (the wider part down), and had our own variation of "Battling Tops" -- using a large pasta bowl for an "arena," to see whose upright spinning egg could reign supreme!

Finally, we had (the obligatory) Easter Egg hunt.

It helps to know how many eggs you've actually hidden (since the hider often forgets where he or she put them!); we controlled this by filling an empty egg carton, and only hiding those.

All in all, I'd say this first formal "group" experiment was a success!

Related Literature Extension: In Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, there is a story ("The Case of the Champion Egg Spinner") about a kid who, ultimately, is caught cheating at egg spinning contests. This experiment explains how Encyclopedia was able to find him out!

September 05, 2008

The first quarter is already 1/3 of the way over -- wow, this year is already whizzing by!

There is so much I've been meaning to share, especially regarding how I'm approaching curriculum and planning on a daily basis, and how that plays out in our daily routine. I also want to share my initial impressions of the purchased curriculum we're using, and the modifications I'm making to it.

But planning and implementing and recording and prepping is taking a lot more of my time than I expected, and I don't know if it will lessen as I really get clicking here or not. Meanwhile, if I ever hope to get any sleep, something's gotta give -- and so far, it's blogging (believe me, I'd rather write than do laundry, but the towels start to smell if I put them off too long.) :)

So, to make a long story short, I hope to get in more blogging time soon, both here and on my planning site, In My Backyard.

Welcome to My Blog!

We are a Catholic homeschooling family of 7, a blend of step children, bio children and adoptees, making our way to heaven the best way we know how! Here's a record of our journey, with thoughts on anything we care about--mostly homeschooling, faith and finding a way to make it all work for each of us. Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy your visit!